The Insider

For me, the funniest moment at the recent charity opening of the new Bloomingdale's department store in Los Angeles came when Jerry Seinfeld told the audience of 2,000, including such stars as Billy Crystal, Michael Keaton and Penny Marshall, to ask him anything they wanted. A man yelled out, "Who's your favorite [Seinfeld] cast member?" Recognizing the voice of Jon Lovitz, Seinfeld asked the ex-Saturday Night Live star (there with Brandi Sixx, the estranged wife of Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx) to stand up. Seinfeld then announced, "Jon Lovitz, ladies and gentlemen, the star of High School High. Go see it this weekend. It'll be your last chance." (To be fair, although not a big hit, HSH. is still around.)...

I've finally had it confirmed to me by someone in the Michael Jackson camp that Debbie Rowe, the medical assistant who is the soon-to-be-mother of the singer's first child, suffered a miscarriage earlier this year after the first time she and Jackson conceived. The source insists that both pregnancies were achieved the conventional way and not by artificial insemination....

Three high-profile celebs at the Nov. 6 Beverly Hills funeral of Bernard Lafferty, the butler who was, briefly, the coexecutor of the estate of the late tobacco heiress Doris Duke, were Elizabeth Taylor, Peggy Lee and O.J. Simpson nemesis Faye Resnick. Lafferty had written a big check to one of Taylor's AIDS charities and had worked for Lee a decade ago....

Mary Tyler Moore's past caught up with her recently when she saw an old photo of herself wearing a full-length fox coat in a brochure promoting Columbia House Video's tapes of vintage Mary Tyler Moore Show episodes. Moore, now an antifur activist, dashed off a letter asking that the photo be replaced with a fur-free shot. According to a Columbia House rep, the furry photo came from the company that still bears Moore's initials, MTM Entertainment, even though the actress no longer owns it. Tony Thomopoulos, who currently runs MTM, assures me that a furless photo will be supplied to Columbia House for all subsequent promo campaigns. "Unfortunately," he says, "I can't change what's already out there."...

What are old friends for? Now that Laurie Metcalf has signed a deal with ABC to do a situation comedy of her own after Roseanne ends its run, I hear that the network is bringing in former Roseanne writer-producer Eric Gilliland to help develop the new show....

All Harrison Ford and director Sydney Pollack were trying to do was leave the Hollywood party for the opening of the new movie The English Patient so they could head back to Ford's house for a nightcap. But they didn't count on the two dozen fans, armed with autograph books and cameras, who began shouting, "Mr. Ford! Mr. Ford!" as the two men exited the party tent. When the pair got into a limo and sped off, the autograph seekers, rather than wait for other celebs, including Cher and Patrick Swayze, jumped into their own cars and trucks and took off in pursuit. Pollack later told me that a chase ensued "for two miles through the streets of L.A." before Ford stopped the limo, got out and signed.